The financial news that actually matters
If you are one of the roughly 8 million borrowers still enrolled in the federal SAVE repayment plan, according to the U.S. Department of Education, a clock is already ticking. On July 1, loan servicers will begin sending notices that the program is officially dead and that every SAVE enrollee must choose a replacement plan….
On the morning of May 19, 2026, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield crossed 5.2 percent, a threshold the bond market had not touched since late 2007. By the close of the week, it was still there. For the millions of Americans about to sign a mortgage, finance a vehicle, or carry a credit card balance…
Bitcoin fell below $77,000 during early trading on Monday, May 19, 2026, its lowest level in over a month, as a punishing wave of forced liquidations swept through crypto derivatives markets. Data from Coinglass showed roughly $657 million in leveraged positions wiped out across major exchanges within hours. The drop extended a slide that has…
Nvidia reports $78 billion in quarterly revenue Wednesday – almost twice the combined revenue of McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola for the same three months A single chipmaker is about to report more revenue for one quarter than McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola managed to generate in the same period combined. And it won’t be close. When…
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index, a composite of ten forward-looking indicators ranging from manufacturing hours to building permits to consumer expectations, has spent the better part of a year pointing in one direction: down. In its most recent public release, the organization reported that the LEI fell 1.2 percent over the six months ending…
A federal gas-tax holiday sounds like relief. For the average American family, it would amount to about $35 over five months, roughly what it costs to fill half a tank. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, introduced the Gas Tax Suspension Act (S. 4485) during the 119th Congress. In May 2026, Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly…
Millions of Americans who paid late-payment penalties on their 2020 or 2021 federal tax returns may be owed money by the IRS, and the deadline to claim it is barely seven weeks away. In late 2023, the IRS announced it was waiving roughly $1 billion in failure-to-pay penalties that had accumulated during pandemic-era collection delays….
For roughly 70 million Americans who depend on Social Security, one inflation report just rewrote the math on next year’s raise. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its April 2026 Consumer Price Index data on May 12, and the numbers were sharper than almost anyone tracking the cost-of-living adjustment had expected. The projected 2027 COLA…
A family shopping for a $400,000 home this week will pay roughly $2,490 a month in principal and interest, about $370 more than the same loan would have cost at the roughly 3.2-to-3.9 percent rates that Freddie Mac recorded in early 2022. The reason showed up on the Treasury Department’s daily yield curve on May…
If you’re one of the millions of federal student loan borrowers still enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan, your servicer is about to send you a letter that demands a decision. Starting July 1, 2026, loan servicers will begin notifying SAVE enrollees that they must choose a new, legally authorized repayment plan within 90 days….